Board of Governors recognizes pharmacy professor Susan Davis for contributions to national COVID-19 treatment guidelines

Susan Davis
Two of the five Wayne State professors chosen for the 2021 Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award call WSU Applebaum home: Clinical Professor of Pharmacy Practice Dr. Susan Davis (above) and Associate Professor of Physical Therapy Dr. Joseph A. Roche. Both made major contributions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Pharmacy Practice Dr. Susan Davis has earned a 2021 Wayne State University Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award. The award honors her work as an invited member of the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel, which was convened in March 2020 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

For the past year, the panel has continuously managed the urgent task of providing up-to-date, evidence-based information to frontline clinicians tasked with treating COVID-19 patients. Davis is one of six pharmacists nationwide to serve on the panel, which is composed of 38 academicians, clinicians, and representatives from various professional societies and government agencies. She is the only member from Michigan.

Dr. Davis has certainly validated pharmacists as true medication experts and has changed the way pharmacists are viewed by health care providers.

– WSU Applebaum PharmD alumna Kerry LaPlante ’02
Professor and chair of pharmacy practice, University of Rhode Island

The panel’s full set of guidelines is a living document available here.

“Dr. Davis’s service is not only exceptional because of the rapidly changing nature of the pandemic, but also because of the politicization of COVID-19 treatment measures,” said WSU Applebaum Dean Cathy Lysack. “She has balanced this challenging role while remaining an active and much-cherished professor, preceptor and colleague. It is no exaggeration to say that Dr. Davis has exceeded the call of duty in every possible way.”

In addition to her professorship and service to the panel, Davis directs the infectious diseases pharmacotherapy and antimicrobial stewardship fellowship program between Wayne State and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where she is an infectious diseases pharmacy specialist. She is also president of the Society of Infectious Disease Pharmacists (SIDP).

“Dr. Davis has a national reputation as a thought leader in infectious diseases pharmacotherapy,” said Jason Pogue, SIDP’s immediate past president and clinical pharmacy professor at the University of Michigan. “As a fellow infectious diseases pharmacist, I cannot emphasize enough the extreme importance of this panel to the optimal patient care of patients with COVID-19 and the immense contributions of Dr. Davis to its guidelines.”

Davis has published more than 90 papers in infectious diseases and pharmacotherapy, her work has been cited more than 3,250 times, and she has been invited to lecture and present her research to leading clinicians and scientists on an international scale. She is member of the Wayne State University Academic Senate, a former Wayne State University Academic Leadership Academy Fellow, and a board member of the non-profit Making A Difference in Infectious Diseases.

Each year since 1974, the Board of Governors, in conjunction with the president, has presented the Faculty Recognition Award to up to five members of the regular full-time faculty in response to a particular accomplishment during the previous academic year. Each award consists of a citation, an engraved plaque and an unrestricted award of $2,500.

Of the five faculty members chosen from across campus this year, two of them represent WSU Applebaum. Associate Professor of Physical Therapy Joseph A. Roche also earned recognition for his contributions to COVID-19 research.

The awards will be presented at the April 30 Board of Governors meeting and recognized during Academic Recognition Week, May 3-7.

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